== *149* ==
[Urdu 1859] [3.0] CAUSE III --  THE IGNORANCE OF GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY AND THEIR SUBJECTS

[3.1] [3.1x] The ignorance of Government of the State of the country and their subjects.

I wonder whether 'subjects' is really the best translation for ri((aayaa ? Certainly if we're determined to have a word that can be translated as 'subjects', it's a top contender. Still, it's not really the ordinary sense of the word, which is more like 'common people' (Platts p.594). However, the word may well have evolved since Sir Sayyid's day.

The 1873 translation is hardly even a translation at all here, but a very compressed and altered paraphrase. Sir Sayyid uses the language of love, affection, mingling, mutuality-- and the translators generalize it and don't even apply it to India! It's hard to believe they're doing it innocently, in this particular case. They're softening his powerful accusation ('you don't love us, you don't mix with us') into something much more abstract and bland. Of course, Sir Sayyid's claim that such universal intimacy and affection was offered by early Muslims to non-Muslims in South Asia is also more than a bit overblown; there are certainly examples of it, but there are also, unsurprisingly, more than a few counterexamples.

Here the British seem to be one qaum , with the Indians as a whole constituting another one.

The translators give Sir Sayyid a very charitable tone-- naturally the English can't mingle like this, because they all want to go home and retire-- which is completely absent in the Urdu. In the Urdu, you get the feeling that he's biting his tongue to keep from saying some further harsh things about English snobbery and pretensions to cultural superiority. (While he himself often displays some of those same attitudes toward the 'polytheists' around him.)

== *150* ==
[3.2] [3.2x] Local authorities generally unacquainted with the condition of their subjects.

Again, very free translation, really 'transcreation'. You'd almost think they had been using a different version of the Urdu text; the main ideas are the same, but hardly any of the specifics.

There's a phrase missing from the Urdu text: it should be aur hamaare gavarnma;N;T ne jo dar-;haqiiqat gavarnma;N;T-e nau((iyah hai un baato;N se gavarnma;N;T-e sha;x.siyah kii .suurat paidaa kii thii . This correction comes from the facsimile edition. I'm not sure I've got this contrast right, but I don't see how the 1873 translators get their version either.

== *151* ==
[3.3] [3.3x] Overwhelming poverty of the Indians, particularly of the Mahommadans.

In the Urdu text, this title goes on to include that of the following section.

The word 'best' is only one possible translation of sab se ba;Rii ; it could also mean 'most common'. Here 'qaum' seems to mean religious and/or caste group.

== *152 * == *153 * ==
[3.4][3.4x] Scarcity of employments, generally the Mahommadans whose profession is commonly service were particularly impoverished.

In the Urdu text, this title is appended to that of the previous section.

The well-born [ashraaf] Muslims objected to an army full of common soldiers [tilangah]. The word for the common soldiers refers to people from Telingana, where the first Company soldiers were recruited. But the objection here is not to their ethnicity, but their low military and social rank. I don't know where the 1873 translation gets its emphasis on the posts in people's retinues being 'well-paid' in former times; there doesn't seem to be any warrant for it in the Urdu.

The last sentence of the Urdu seems to be reflected in the first sentence of Section 3.5 in the 1873 translation.

== *154* ==
[3.5] [3.5x] The same causes induced them to serve the rebels on one anna, one and half annas, or one seer of flour per diem.

The language of the 1873 translation is so much drier and more bureaucratic than the passionate complaint in the Urdu.

== *155* ==
[3.6] [3.6x] The stoppage of charitable pensions and stipends tending in a great measure to the poverty of the Indians.

The assertion that the weavers were the most enthusiastic of all in supporting the rebellion is an intriguing one, and it's completely omitted from the 1873 translation.

== *156* ==
[3.7] [3.7x] The investment of capital in Government loans.

The second paragraph in the Urdu text of this section appears in the 1873 translation at the beginning of the following section. It has nothing to do with Company notes, and seems much more like a kind of wrap-up of the argument. So I've just gone ahead and moved it to the beginning of [3.8].

== *157* == *158* ==
[3.8] [3.8x] Poverty the cause of the subject's rejoicing at the idea of a change of Government, and wishing for it.

Sir Sayyid began his work by saying that everything about 'our Government' was so fine that the people only needed to understand it better in order to support it fully. Then as he's gotten into the spirit of reporting people's grievances, he's become more and more angry (or maybe he's simply letting his suppressed anger show). The process has gone so far that now he actually says, with ostentatious judiciousness, 'I don't say there was nothing good about it'. What a long way he's come, perhaps unconsciously, since his gushing opening remarks.

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